Skip to Content
Streetsblog USA home
Streetsblog USA home
Log In
Barack Obama

Will Obama’s Transportation Jobs Plan Avoid Funding Sprawl?

1:42 PM EDT on September 28, 2011

USDOT has made public the breakdown of President Obama’s $50 billion plan to create jobs through transportation infrastructure investment. The administration says: “It will put people to work upgrading 150,000 miles of road, laying/maintaining 4,000 miles of train tracks, restoring 150 miles of runways, and putting in place a next-generation air-traffic control system that will reduce travel time and delays.”

Parts of Obama's American Jobs Act have made a return in his 2013 budget proposal. Photo: ##http://www.shrm.org/Advocacy/GovernmentAffairsNews/HRIssuesUpdatee-Newsletter/Pages/091611_1.aspx##SHRM##

Specifically, they lay out the numbers:

    • $27 billion for rebuilding roads and bridges
    • $9 billion for repairing bus and rail transit systems
    • $5 billion for projects selected through a competitive grant program
    • $4 billion for construction of the high-speed rail network
    • $2 billion to improve airport facilities
    • $1 billion for a NextGen air traffic control system

It's encouraging to see the words "upgrading" and "rebuilding" when it comes to roads, indicating that the administration might be adhering to a fix-it-first approach to transportation spending. But, as we mentioned last week, the bridge Obama highlighted recently as a prime target for jobs-bill money isn't actually in need of repair -- transportation officials just want to widen it to allow more traffic to go through faster.

Certainly, the administration has shown a desire to attack the maintenance backlog in the country, but that doesn't guarantee that highway expansions and sprawl projects won't get a slice of the "rebuilding" pie.

That said, it's good to see the plan includes $5 billion for projects funded through a competitive grant program (think TIGER). And it also hits a somewhat more equitable balance between rail/transit and roads than Congressional transportation bills generally do.

The president’s plan also includes an infrastructure bank, funded with $10 billion seed money. The administration says projects will be evaluated on the basis of how badly they’re needed and how much they would help the economy.

Some have said over the last couple of weeks that the I-bank concept is in trouble after the GOP pounced on the Solyndra loan story, in which a solar company filed for bankruptcy soon after receiving half a billion dollars in government-backed loans. Experts say the infrastructure bank proposal would vet projects well and protect taxpayers from risk.

Stay in touch

Sign up for our free newsletter

More from Streetsblog USA

Want a Better 15-Minute City? Ask Residents What They Really Want

A new study from Bogotá models how other cities can ask a deeper set of questions about how to put essential needs within walking, biking or transit distance.

March 19, 2024

Tuesday’s Headlines Win the Gold

Two articles detail efforts in Paris and Los Angeles to put on (relatively) climate-friendly Olympic games in 2024 and 2028.

March 19, 2024

Monday’s Headlines Drink Your Milkshake

How does a president end wasteful subsidies for the highly profitable fossil fuel industry? Many have tried, but none have succeeded, including Joe Biden.

March 18, 2024

How — and Why — To Start a Neighborhood E-Bike Library

American advocates are loaning out e-bikes to their neighbors — and creating flocks of new riders.

March 18, 2024

What Urbanists’ Doug Burgum Lovefest Reveals About the ‘Why’ Behind Our Advocacy

I am far less interested in talking about Gov. Doug Burgum's politics than talking about his values, and how those values shape his urbanism, and thus the actual lives of the people he governs.

March 15, 2024
See all posts